Crowd mentality

We wake up every day to bleaker and bleaker headlines. We watch as governments flail in vain attempts to provide a ‘quick-fix’ solution. Everyone we talk to is worried about what the ‘credit-crunch’ will mean to them. My advice? Take a step back, stop and think whether ‘following the herd’ is such a great strategy.

My favourite book is ‘The Art of War’ by Sun Tzu and the quote that really rings true at the moment for me is

In peace prepare for war, in war prepare for peace.

In essence, this means that ‘blind freddy’ could have seen the economic turmoil in which we are embroiled coming sooner or later. A smart operator would have taken the necessary steps to prepare for this, even though that would probably have gone against what the ‘crowd’ was saying.

So now we are facing some tough times no doubt. Every individual and every business is going to be affected. Is there much that you can do to prevent it? Probably not. The best tactic will be to develop a strategy to ride it out. However, once again the smart operators are looking beyond the current issues and preparing themselves to benefit from the next phase.

The best evidence of this is what Warren Buffet said recently (another commentary). Most people would agree that Warren is a pretty smart dude and knows what his talking about, his record as one of the richest men in the world (US$52 billion) certainly stands as testimony to that. Here’s what he said –

A simple rule dictates my buying: be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful.

In simple terms he believes prices are low and now is a good time to start accumulating quality assets that will rise in value over the long term. Sounds pretty simple but how many people will do it? It is much easier to run with the crowd isn’t it?

I believe that now more than ever you need to be evaluating your business and determining whether it is prepared for the upcoming financial storm AND what lies beyond. To be successful in my books you are going to have to look above and beyond what everyone else is doing or saying. It takes courage to stand up and be different but remember it is your life and your business. You need to determine what works for you! You need to cast an unemotional eye across all aspects of your business and whether the investment you are making (in time, effort and money) is actually giving you a good rate of return. If it isn’t, will it? Should you jettison it? Should you look at taking something else on to add to your ‘portfolio’ that will pay dividends in the future? Doing something that has a poor rate of return day after day after day is plain dumb.

Preparing for anything is not easy, it involves time and effort but if you view it as an investment you will receive far more than you ever invested. You can never hope to achieve this unless you invest in the first place. I wish you could but as they say – you can’t get something for nothing.

So become a ‘smart operator’ and look beyond the emotional crowd mentality that currently rules almost everything we hear these days. Learn from the masters of their game (Sun Tzu and Warren Buffet to name but two) and prepare for what lies ahead rather than simply reacting to what is happening now. Yet above all remember this last piece of advice from Sun Tzu –

You have to believe in yourself

Normal programming will now resume

Things have been quiet on the blog for a while as I took a holiday from technology for a while. Now I’m back on deck so you should start seeing more posts flowing through.

The slides from my recent SMBNation presentation are now available to attendees to download. You will find them here:

http://www.smbnation.com/events_listpage.asp?Category=SMB~Nation~Fall~2008&Category2=Presentations

You’ll need a login and password to gain access since they are available to conference attendees. For those who were unable to attend I have created a PDF copy of the slides which you can download. The PDF copy is only low-res, if you want the hi-res version just contact me.

I’d love to hear any feedback people may have on what I presented, whether they attended the conference or not. The only way to continually improve, I believe, is through feedback – so let me have it.

SMBNation – Day 3

Location: Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.

Weather: Damp

Well Day three of SMBNation kicked off even earlier than the previous two days (groan). After yesterdays breakfast disappointment I decided to grab something to eat at the place across from my hotel. As I sat looking at the morning drizzle I was joined by Kevin Tobey from Tobey Consulting Services, another SMBNation attendee. We had an excellent chat and that is really what I have gotten the most from at the conference, the networking.

We then strolled to the conference center and watched the keynote – Microsoft Solutions for the Small and Mid-Sized Business customer given by Cindy Bates. Not surprisingly the major thing I took away was they want partners to sell hosted solutions from Microsoft. If attendees haven’t got the message by now then ….

Next up was – Secure Remote Access with Windows Server solutions by Dana Epp. Look Dana’s stuff is always great and I was interested to see what options are available but towards the end I was trying to focus on my presentation Utilizing Sharepoint to Improve your Business.

Hopefully I was able to provide information that was of value to people who attended. I appreciate all the positive feedback people gave me afterwards so I think that I achieved my aim. As I said in my presentation I thank Harry and SMBNation for giving me the opportunity to present, especially given it was first time at the conference.

The final event of the conference was a round of speed dating. This is where an ‘expert’ sits at a table and attendees can come and speak with that person. When the gong sounds you move to the next table. This event is difficult to co-ordinate with so many people but I think it was very positive. I really enjoyed talking with the people who took the time to speak with me and I hope I wasn’t too blunt in my opinions.

All done, all finished I headed back to my hotel for a quick refresh and then back out to a party organized by a vendor. Nothing flash just some drinks and food at a local bar. It was good to unwind and chat with some more attendees.

To everyone who took the time to give me their business card or ask me Sharepoint, my business or make fun of my accent I say a big thanks. Like I said earlier it is really the networking and contacts that I will take away as the big plus from this experience. Safe travelling to all attendees returning home and once again thanks Harry and SMBNation for putting on such a great event. I hope to get the opportunity to return.

Now that the conference is over

I am free to tell everyone who attended my SharePoint session at SMBNation that I have developed a product called the Windows SharePoint Operations Guide that helps you install, configure and maintain Windows SharePoint on a variety of platforms. If you want more information see:

http://www.wssops.com

The guide is an annual subscription for which you get over 800 pages of information specifically focused on Windows Sharepoint as well a DVD that includes installation files, training and marketing material to help you or your customers get up to speed with SharePoint quickly.

The guide is available from me or via SMBBooks. Since it is a subscription I update the documentation every month and for the price it is an easy way to get a swag of information on Sharepoint that normally would take hours to find, test and implement.

SMBNation 2008 – Day 2

Location: Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.

Weather: Wintery

Upon arriving this morning attendees discovered that “breakfast” was available in the vendor’s hall not out in the meal tent as yesterday. We also found that the selection was limited to a few pastries, bread to toast, coffee and juice. Probably worst of all there was nothing to sit down on or stand around. This meant we all had to crowd around garbage bins and other flat surfaces as well consumed our meal. My conversations with other attendees reinforced my feeling that this was indeed very poor. Many also told me that this was going to be their last conference as the main thing they came for was the networking but even that didn’t seem to be provided for now. So, if anyone from SMBNation is out there I would suggest that having a good breakfast spread is very important to attendees and if it ain’t done right attendees are going to bitch about it all day!

This morning kicked off with a session from Trend Micro about their security offering. Have to admit that I had heard it before and was a little distracted because the wifi in the hotel last night wasn’t working. That was a problem simply because all there appears to be on the TV every time I turn it on is a commercial and I’d like to be able to do something before going to bed!

After yesterday’s disappointment with the technical tracks I decided that I’d try attending the business track today. This kicked off with Red Ocean/Blue Ocean by Henry Craven (Australian MVP). It was based on the idea that it doesn’t make sense to try and compete in an already cut throat and saturated market (Red Ocean), you need to perform some systematic analysis of your business and work out where the opportunities are that provide growth without competition (Blue Ocean). This does make a lot of sense in the current context of the changing face of the SMB IT Market.

Next up was – Own your business don’t let it own you by George Sierchio. A very practical common sense, down to earth assessment of whether you should be in running a business or working for some else. This stuff always sounds very basic but in many cases it is too easy to overlook. Things like measuring what you do and the fact that you as a person are the average of your surroundings. This is simple terms means that if you want to be successful you need to hang around with people more successful than you, likewise if you want to improve your golf don’t play with people who you can beat, play with people who are better than you. Again, some very good material was presented here and I got real value from attending.

After this was – Total small business management using OneNote 2007 by Todd Colbeck. This session was easily the best of the day for me. Even though I have used OneNote, I had my eyes opened the possibilities it provides when applied to clients to better help them improve their productivity. I have a much greater respect for the potential of OneNote now and have some great ideas for building a revenue stream around its implementation, especially when teamed with the addition of Sharepoint.

Lastly was – Proven steps to get your marketing in shape by Derek Brown. Although Derek hadn’t been told that the session was scheduled to run for 90 minutes his presentation was excellent and provided some real value for me. Some of his experience in email campaigns and web site usage I can see having direct application to my business. Now because Derek hadn’t planned for the full time he was allocated Todd Colbeck from the previous OneNote session stepped in to ‘pinch hit’ (see my American is improving) and discussed the development of a referral program. The input from the audience was also golden and I came away with a swag of information about how to better market my business.

So in summary, was today worthwhile? – You Bet! Was it better than yesterday? – You Bet! Now I’m sure that those who attended the technical sessions would probably have said the same thing. This is the great thing about SMBNation, it isn’t totally technically focused and it provides the resources for people to learn more about improving their business, their skills or a combination of both. Today I walked away with some real value that I will definitely implement in my business and this more than made up for the poor start (i.e. breakfast).

So tomorrow is my turn on the big stage. Wish me luck.

SMBNation 2008 – Day 1

Location: Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.

Weather: Moist and windy

Well the first official day of SMBNation 2008 kicked off with breakfast on the pier outside the conference center from 7 am. Have to admit that I was a little disappointed with the offering, it was pretty basic. This sentiment certainly seemed to be echoed by other attendees.

From there we moved into the conference centre proper. The first session on offer was a key note from Intel. Although their hardware offering is impressive I think that the blade system they demonstrated was a little out of the league of most attendees business. Maybe I’m wrong here but it is certainly aimed at the multi-server businesses.

Next up was Jeff Middleton speaking about migration to SBS 2008. His session was titled – The good, bad and ugly of migration to 2008 platforms. Although I was aware of many of the issues he raised I did learn that the migration is going to be more difficult that you think, especially Exchange server. Good news is that Jeff expects to have a 2008 migration product available from his SBSMigration site BUT it will only be available to people who have already purchased his previous SBS 2003 swing migration product. The reason for this is simply that you are going to need experience with swing migration before the swing migration to 2008 will make sense. Bad news is that it probably won’t be an overnight process. The ugly is that Exchange migration is going to be tricky because you can no longer simply fork lift the mail stores onto the new server, they will need to be sync’ed object by object.

The next session was given by Amy Babinchak called – Decisions, decisions, decisions. Making the Firewall choice for SBS 2008 since both versions of SBS 2008 no longer come with a firewall and only support a single network card. She ran over what the threats faced and what the perceived threats are from both the IT and business owners perspective. Again, I must admit that most of the information here was nothing new or earth shattering and any integrator worth their salt should be aware of this. However, it is good to have all these issues presented in a concise manner.

Next up was a session of the Gotcha’s of SBS2008 – Real world SBS 2008 deployments with Susan Bradley and Ofier Shimrat. This session covered topics as choosing the right sort or hardware, how to configure it and what issues you may face. There was plenty of information on offer here but in some respects maybe it was too much as the session ran well overtime. Perhaps the session tried to achieve too much and should have focused on smaller set of topics but none the less I did get some good information here.

Probably the highlight session of the day was the How to do software as a service with Grant Thompson and Scott Barlow simply because it demonstrated to me how many resellers, even here, that are fighting ‘cloud computing’ tooth and nail. It was very interesting to see how many resellers are running scared of the changes that are happening in our industry. I picked a number of techniques that would help resellers sell software as a service to customers and explain it to them in a language that they can understand.

Overall I can’t say that the sessions on offer were of a particularly high value to me personally but they do have to cater for a wide variety of attendees which I can understand. I would say however, that I did receive value out of the day but by far the greatest value I received on the day was from the networking with other attendees. It is extremely interesting to talk about their business, their customers and the solutions they have deployed. It clear from talking to many of them the more progressive ones that they are embracing the move to ‘cloud computing’ and facing the reality of this as a business model for themselves and their customers.

So that’s it from Day 1 of SMBNation and I look forward to providing you an update from tomorrow.

Incongruity

At the moment I’m currently reading “Innovation and Entrepreneurship” By Peter Drucker. In the chapter on incongruity I was struck by the following:

“The reaction of the typical producer or supplier is then to complain that customers are ‘irrational’ or ‘unwilling to pay for quality.’ Whenever such a complaint is heard, there is reason to assume that the values an expectations the producer or supplier holds to be real are incongruous with the actual values and expectation of customers and clients. Then there is reason to look for an opportunity for innovation that is highly specific, and carries a good chance of success’.

It seems to me that so many SMB resellers are constantly bemoaning how ‘irrational’ and ‘unwilling to pay for quality’ customers these days are. Their use of the these exact phrases is what struck me about this passage in the book. It simply boils down to the fact that what SMB resellers believe the reality to be is not in fact the case.

As IT and computers become more and more main stream the so called ‘special knowledge’ of resellers is rapidly eroding. Given that more people entering the work force are au fait with technology and the simple fact that everyone can use Google drastically erodes any ‘special knowledge’ resellers believe they have. Resellers complaints about ‘irrational’ customers indicates an incongruity and as Drucker says an opportunity for innovation. However, that opportunity doesn’t remain forever.

Going forward, a SMB reseller is not going to be able to provide innovation simply by reselling equipment and programs. Larger hardware businesses like Dell, HP, IBM and the like have the resources to provide innovation on a grand scale while at the same time driving prices down. Likewise, large software businesses such as Microsoft and Google are similarly moving closer to the customer to provide more consistent and cheaper offerings. All of these moves are proving more successful everyday. Why? Simply because they are providing ‘value’ for the customer, if they weren’t they wouldn’t sell.

So as an SMB reseller where does the opportunity lie? Not a simple question given the ever shrinking market opportunity. As Drucker says the solution is a ‘to look for an opportunity for innovation that is highly specific’. For too long SMB resellers have been ‘jack-of-all-trades’, well I believe this now no longer possible simply give the breadth of products that are now installed. A reseller has to carefully examine what a customer perceives as value. For this they will happily pay. Importantly, it’s value as perceived by THE CUSTOMER not THE RESELLER! It is in this view of the world that many resellers fall down. Why? Simple, most customers don’t care at all about technology they simply want to do their job. Most resellers have gotten into IT because they love to fiddle with technology, sadly, that is not what most customers want to do these days.

For an SMB reseller it is now probably time to look at adapting in way that focuses on being more specific rather than simply adding more products to the range of offerings. Perhaps, it’s time to think about getting smaller and more focused than getting bigger? Do what you do well better, don’t waste time trying to improve stuff with which you struggle. Next, start listening to what the customer wants, not what you want to sell them. Solve their pain and provide them value. The other key to success in my books? Improve your networking. Get involved with other members of the reseller community, find out what they do, read their blogs, look at their web sites, have a regular coffee with them, learn their business and become their best salesman. If you do that for them I’m pretty certain that they’ll do the same for you and more!

Use the power of leverage to multiple your size beyond what you ever dreamed. It is by far the greatest innovation resource available to an SMB reseller and in reality it is cheap. If you follow this, I think, as Drucker says, you’ll have ‘a good chance of success.’

Serenity now! Serenity now!

Frank: Serenity now! Serenity now!
George: What is that?
Frank: Doctor gave me a relaxation cassette. When my blood pressure gets too high, the man on the tape tells me to say, ‘Serenity now!’
George: Are you supposed to yell it?
Frank: The man on the tape wasn’t specific.

(Seinfeld, Season 9, Episode 159, 9 October 1997)

I have decided to finish up with Saturn Alliance on the 30th of September 2008. From that point forward you can contact me via director@ciaops.com (and via http://www.ciaops.com).

As such I have also created a new YouTube account where I will continue to post videos. This new location is http://www.youtube.com/directorciaops. The videos I have created at http://www.youtube.com/saturnalliance will remain, however all new videos will be uploaded to the directorciaops account. If you are an existing subscriber I hope that you’ll subscribe to my new account.

My plans at this stage are simply to take a break and then pursue some opportunities in the areas of Sharepoint and IT productivity consultancy.

I take this opportunity to thank all those people who have supported me and Saturn Alliance during my time there and I aim to maintain a close relationship with Saturn Alliance going forward, however I do need to make a change. I’m looking forward to a new world of challenges which I will continue to post here. You may change other things but blogging must go on!

So as Frank would say – “Hoochie mumma”.